


Names in the Wasteland

by Karolina98



Series: The Wasteland [2]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Introspection., Multi, Names
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-09 20:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4362509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karolina98/pseuds/Karolina98
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Names have meaning. They have power.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Furiosa

**Author's Note:**

> Furiosa; Feminine singular of furioso.
> 
> furioso m (feminine singular furiosa, masculine plural furiosi, feminine plural furiose)
> 
> furious

Names were powerful. Names had meaning. And when she had been initiated, Furiosa had been given hers with gleaming eyes and joyous voices. The Many Mothers appreciated her strength, her fire. As even then, that young, she had been angry. Fiery and angry and furious. Filled with a roaring rage at the injustice of it all and willing to fight, fight, fight. They saw her as a protector.

She’d cursed her name more than once, feeling it had cemented her darker, more violent nature.

\------------------------

Furiosa, who had to fight when the raiders came. Fight for her mother. Fight for their water and guzzoline and food. Fight for her friends. Fight for her home. Fight, not hide, and was thus taken.

Furiosa, who had to fight when Joe came to her bunk. Fight, against his intrusion, his bulk and breath and disease. Fights she could never win. The most horrible fights to lose. She had to fight and lose and lose and lose, until she learned how to pick her battles. Her time as a wife tempered her rage, but only fed her fury.

Furiosa, who so very badly wanted to protect the life growing inside her, but knew she never could. She was no protector. She couldn’t protect herself, or her fellow wives and certainly not this child-to-be. She did what was kindest. She did what was kindest three times and made herself barren. A victory in a way. She was no longer Furiosa, she was Vengeance.

Furiosa, who then had to fight. Fight first against the Wretched and then the War Boys. Fight for every gulp of water and every bite of food. Fight for knowledge and ability and her life. But most importantly, she had to fight to keep her fury burning. It was so easy to just fight and become a machine. A weapon. Just skill and no fire. But she was Furiosa and she lived.

Imperator Furiosa, who kept going and going and going until victory was won. Imperator Furiosa, who had taken her accolades and her station from the man who had named himself Immortan, with a face and body hewn of stone. The Immortan had been proud, as if he had made her, and now, along with fury, there was hate.

Imperator Furiosa, who was trusted. But she hated, she hated in a way that was choking her fury. Her fury wanted to fight, but her hatred wanted to die. It wanted to take a false God and all his minions with her, but it wanted to die. So when Angharad begged, Furiosa answered. And the Fury Road had burned away the hatred, thanks be to the Great Mother.

But for a while, the fury was gone as well. She was exhausted, broken and empty. He fury and drive had poured out into the desert sand out of a sucking chest wound. She was victorious.

\-------------------------

So now she is Imperator; Furiosa of the Citadel. A title she doesn’t know how to shed. She doesn’t hate it. Not like she thought she would. The Boys interchange it with Boss and it sounda like respect, even friendships sometimes. Imperators looked after their Sarges and after teams of Boys through Sarges. So maybe she is a protector after all.

The Sisters called her Furiosa, and it didn’t sound like rage. They said it with laughter in their voices and it sounded like a word. Like a name. It sounded like affection.

Ally avoided calling her anything at all. Ally called her Sis when she had to.

And Max, Max called her Furi. Not very often, and not very loudly. Usually in bed. Sometimes on the road. It didn’t sound like Fury at all.

\---------------

So names had power. And meaning. And Furiosa was, in essence; fury and fight and fire. But she could be all those thing. She could be all those things and also be Imperator and Boss and Furi and Sis. She was a person, and she could not be contained by a name.


	2. Cheedo the Fragile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fragile  
> easily broken or damaged.  
> easily destroyed or threatened.  
> (of a person) not strong or sturdy; delicate and vulnerable.

She was called Cheedo, but mostly, she was called Fragile.

\-----------------------

She’d been born and raised in the Citadel, but high up. Away from the Wretched, from the War Boys, away from War. She’s embarrassed at how long it took her to realize the violence she lived above. The injustice.

She was raised by old women, Milk Mothers who had run out of milk. She was raised with a belly full and never knowing what it was like to feel hungry or thirsty or pain. And she was raised in a soft place. No sharp edges and no hard words. Her skin had never had a chance to harden.

Joe liked fragile things. Pretty things. He like having things easily broken and knowing he was powerful enough to keep others from breaking them. It was, Cheedo thought, ironic that he was the one breaking her.

She had always known what her life would be like. Her tutors had told her what it would be like. What to do and say and how to bear it. But even if she did everything she was told, he would paint bruises under her skin and draw bloody lines in her flesh.

For a long time, she knew what she was. She was Wife and she was Fragile. She wasn’t strong like Angharad, who fought for her own body. Like Toast who soaked up knowledge that no one could take from her. Like Capable who never smiled a fake smile and was relentlessly optimistic. Or like Dag. Dag who was so much herself she could never be anything else.

But sometimes, when she was thinking she could perhaps be strong, she thought maybe she was Fragile, but she was also good at putting herself back together.

 -------------------------

Their flight. The time in the Rig, on the road, she had learned what the world was really like. The heat, the fire and the pain. The pain and the violence was too much. Too big. And, being weak, being Fragile, she had though to go back. To be safe. To have the time to put herself back together again after she inevitably broke. She would never be able to thank her Sisters for stopping her.

She wasn’t sure, during that time that was both terrifying and very boring, how she felt about Furiosa. Someone so very close to the violence of men, but different. Someone even Named after violence. And a man Named Fool, though Cheedo hadn’t seen him do any very foolish things.

But the flight, and the return, had also grown strength in her bones. Enough strength to trick Rictus. Enough to save herself and her sisters. Enough to actually go home.

 ------------------------------

She was back where she came from and everyone knew her as Fragile. But she was resolved to be strong. To be like Angharad, like Capable and Toast and to be _strong_. So when she was Named Fragile in front of Ally, who was new and didn’t know Cheedo at all, she spoke out.

 “I’m not Fragile.” She stated. A little wobbly maybe, the words unknown in her mouth, but she was determined. Ally had looked at her with dark eyes and a relaxed face. Cheedo found her strange and unsettling. She was never surprised or angry or sad. She was always so very calm.

 “We’re all fragile. We’re alive.” Ally had said, sounding strange. Later, for no reason at all, Ally had given her a thing. It was as big as two fists put together and made entirely out of silvery, sparkly thread, it seemed. It was ridiculously delicate and.. Fragile. Cheedo had never been so angry. She’d hurled it at the wall next to Ally’s head, who didn’t react at all.

Days after, she came across the thing on the floor. It was back in one piece again. Pieces crumbled when she picked it up, but she kept it. Always kept it in her rooms. It gets knocked to the floor and shatters. It chips and breaks and crumbles and it always ends up back together again.

Just like her. Building a new world is gruelling work and she breaks her heart and her bones again and again. Pieces of her soul get chipped off and sometimes she can’t breathe with the pain of it.

She loves and grieves and mourns and bleeds and gets wrecked. But like her stupid Thing, she puts herself back together again, and she never stops being Fragile.

 

 

 


	3. Max

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MAX  
> Short form of MAXIMUS
> 
> MAXIMUS  
> Roman family name which was derived from Latin maximus "greatest".

Max got his name Before. He doesn’t think his parents were looking for any deep meaning. It was just a sound. A word that meant him. But it also meant another boy, and man on tv, and a girl with pink hair and even a dog. It wasn’t a Name. Max means the greatest or the best, but he’s not even good, let alone the greatest, so it’s just a sound meant to refer to him.

Still, his ghosts say Max when they accuse him. When they judge him. When they scream. The other boy, and the man on the tv, and the girl with the pink hair; they’re all dead. So maybe he’s the only Max left. Maybe now, Max means him. Just him. Maybe Max is hisghost.

He meets more and more people who have Names instead of names. Who have a Name that means them and just them. If you know someone’s Name, you can see them when they’re not there, you _know_ a person. Or in Max’s case, their ghost stays with him.

He stops telling people his name. He was never much for talking anyway. He tells some people. People he knows and trusts. People like Jesse. People who become a part of Max.

Ally knew his name without him ever telling her, but she probably knows everyone’s Name just like that. And she only uses it when he forgets, so that’s okay.

\----------------------------------

When Furiosa asks, he doesn’t tell her. Why would he tell his Name to a woman who just tried to kill him. Why would he give his ghost to someone he doesn’t even know? Why would she even want it? But he misunderstood, and she rolled her eyes and called him Fool.

You had to call people something. If there were people around, you had to keep them apart. But he doesn’t like being around people and he keeps them apart by impressions; one thing that stands them apart. Red hair, mutinous pout, whimsical words. Something that is just a part of a person, not the whole of them. Back when Furiosa was just a person, it was the low timbre of her voice; don’t breathe. He’s now called Fool, which is as good as any.

He tells her his Name later, when she’s dying. He hopes she lives and keeps a piece of his ghost. If not, she has a piece of him to take with her. There was a lot of time, but he knows her now. And he trusts her. And he respects her.

\---------------------------------

Later, when he comes back, more people know his name. The girls, the old women, even the War Boy. He frowns and wonders if he can get them to call him something else. He gives confused glares to people who name him Max and grunts at people in hopes of avoiding all this intimacy. He doesn’t want to know people’s Names. He doesn’t need anymore ghosts. They don’t understand.

“It’s just a name.” Ally says when she appears next to him under something that will hopefully become a tree. He gives her a look and she laughs.

“You’re not listening.” Ally insists and he glares at her.

“See, there’s Max.” Ally says and it sounds like him. Dusty and dinged and grumpy. “And then there’s _Max_.” And it _resonates_. It resonates to ‘do you want to live Max?’, it resonates to Jesse’s smile and to the buzz of a fight and the screech of an engine in flight. It resonates to blood on his hands and the sun burning his face. It’s tiny plants he squirrels back to the Citadel, it a punch, it’s the crunch of lizards between his teeth, it’s Furiosa in his arms, it’s the smell of flesh burning. It’s him.

“Huh.” He acknowledges. Ally rolls her eyes.

“Eloquent as always.”

 ------------------------------

So he’s called Max, by Sisters and Boys and sometimes even people he’s never met.

He’s called _Max_ by Ally, when she picks him up and dusts him off and puts him back of his feet. He’s called _Max_ by Furiosa, breathy and joyous. He called _Fool_ by her as well, low and rumbly. And it means him. All of him.


	4. Immortan Joe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JOE  
> short form of Joseph  
> JOSEPH  
> From Ioseph, the Latin form of Greek Ιωσηφ (Ioseph), which was from the Hebrew name יוֹסֵף (Yosef) meaning "he will add".

There is a difference between the names that are given to you and the names that you give yourself. The name given to you means nothing. A careless thing without meaning. Joe is barely a step up from John; a name so common it can mean any man at all. But he is not any man, he’s not _common_.

\---------------------

When the radiation poisons his bones, he spends all his money on doctors and cures. But the sickness is in his bones, his blood turns poisonous, his skin grows mountains and splits, his hair falls out and he is shutting down. He’s dying. Just like everyone else.

Then he hears of a cure, miracle blood. It seems simple, a blood transfusion of someone healthy. His doctors speak of variation in genetics, natural resistance, stem cells. It doesn’t matter to him at all, he knows it’s illegal, but really, isn’t everything?

He signs up, get a meager bag of blood and.. Is cured. His hair grows back, his tumors shrink, his blood turns red again and he is healed. He is Lazarus. He has overcome.

Then, after a measly month, it all comes back. Tumors, aches, sweats, splitting, itching bleeding. He’s sick. He’s still dying. He goes back. He goes back again. He wastes his money on illegal blood. He knows it works for some. He’s seen a few, a child, a woman, two young men: they got cured and they stayed cured. But not him. Not common Joe.

When the world has finished falling apart, he learns that the blood donor was just one man. Or maybe not a man, but just one, and he’s dead. Used up and bled out. So he finds his brothers, also sick, and together they locate the child and the woman and the two young men. He still got money, he’s still got power and he keep them, feeds and waters them and keeps them safe from thugs and villains and raiders and he names himself Saviour.

\---------------------

Their blood works, but not long enough. The world dies, but Joe has kept his power, his alliances, and most of all, his blood bags. He’s survived. He’s survived everything and everyone. He’s the closest thing to all powerful. Many have tried to kill him, but he lives. He lives again and again. He is Immortal. He is a God.

But the Bloodbags get weaker. One dies. His immortality is dying. He is still dying. And those around him are.. healthy. Natural resistance.So he collects the sick. He’s a survivor and surviving only means you live longer than everyone else.

He finds War Boys and he needs them. He needs them. He needs them to defend him and his treasures and to find more miracle blood. They don’t and they wonder why he needs it.

Then he thinks, didn’t God make man in his image? And he knows nothing of healing, but everything about sickness. He knows that the more Death breathes down your neck, the less you care. The more willing you are to do _anything_.

So he has an army of the sick. They protect and he provides. They die before they live too long. They find bloodbags, not miracle ones, but he lets them keep them.

His Miracles are dying too. But he is Immortan. He will live. He is Immortan.

\------------------------

He thinks, he’s had miracle blood. Maybe it doesn’t work on him, but maybe he can pass it on. And wasn’t God the Father too? So he has children.

They are sick like him and not healthy like their mothers. But he will get there.

He’s taking perfect care of his two remaining miracle bloodbags, and they’re not even getting older. They are Immortal and so is He.

He is Immortan Joe. He is the Saviour. The Protector. The Father. He is God.

\--------------------------

Then Furiosa steals his treasures. Not the miracle Bloodbags, but his wives. His shot at genetic immortality. She kills his first success. And later she kills him. She rips off his face and his air and he dies barely noticing. He dies a Joe. Like all the million other Joes before him.

\--------------------------

Turns out, you can’t name yourself after all.

**Author's Note:**

> More to follow. Probably


End file.
